This year has been a bit of a weird one, with good and not-so-good things happening. This has definitely had an impact on my reading, especially during those not-so-great times. I find that I just don’t enjoy reading when I’m sad, as either I don’t want to read a great book and risk having memories of sad things impacting it forever onwards. Or, I’ll read some average/bad books and I won’t enjoy them, which doesn’t help my mood.… View Post

I’d been wanting to read one of Fiona McIntosh’s historical fiction novels for such a long time, and I finally got around to it! I listened to the audiobook of this, and I have to say:

This was pretty hilariously bad.

Entertaining, sure. And McIntosh has also certainly done her research on the time period; the actual setting was really fun and interesting to read about. But basically, this was just an historical romance novel dressed up to look classier. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a good historical romance. … View Post

Set in present time and in the near future, Station Eleven looks at the outbreak of a deadly virus that is so contagious, the majority of the population is wiped out very quickly. Only a handful of people survive due to circumstance and the book crosses over between some of the survivors in the new post-Apocalyptic-type world, and people just before the virus outbreak, throwing in some even earlier character background stories. … View Post

Ready Player One was such an amazing and exciting novel, and so different from anything I’ve come across before.

Set in 2044, the novel set the scene in a future that is, disturbingly, not too hard to imagine – as we consumed more and more, the effect we had on the planet, its resources and each other became harder for everyone to cope with. Poverty now runs rife in North America as the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. People tried to pack up their belonging and drive their families elsewhere – anywhere – but as petrol became unaffordable, cars and other vehicles were abandoned on highways. As others were no longer able to afford their mortgages, they moved their families into camper vans in trailer parks. This became more and more common, but involved caravan parks running out of space to house everyone, so the concept of stacking the caravan son top of one another came about and it is in these communities, now found everywhere and known as ‘the stacks’, that we meet Wade Watts.… View Post